Narakan Snapper

Native to the Eastern Temperate ecozone of the planet Naraka, Arthrognathus horribilis, commonly known as the Narakan snapper, is an archetypal predator of the arthrognath clade. The snapper is a broad, barrel-chested creature, adapted for quick lunges rather than extended pursuits. Despite weighing only around seventy pounds, the snapper's enormous jaws enable it to tackle prey much larger than itself, quite a feat for a solitary hunter. In addition to their size, the snapper's jaws are also notable for being jointed. Indeed, the jointed jaws are the only obvious signs of the snapper's arthropod-like ancestry; in all other respects it has converged remarkably on the vertebrate condition. The distal segments of the jaws are equipped with long grasping teeth, while the inner segments contain rows of slicing blades, which efficiently reduce prey to easily manageable slices. A second pair of pharyngial jaws help draw the mutilated morsels down the throat.
The snapper is well-equipped with sensory organs. Three pairs of eyes are located on lateral bulges to the rear of the skull. Having multiple pairs of eyes gives the snapper a wider field of vision, at the eyes themselves are immovable. The snapper's vision is much weaker than human vision. The openings to the front of the eyes are heat-sensor pits, much like those found in pitvipers. Small pores in the corners of the snapper's mouth act as olfactory sensors. Breathing orifices are located in a deep fold behind the snapper's "scapula;" the necessity to keep these orifices open is one of the reasons for the snapper's sprawling posture. Tall bristles on its back are themselves covered with thousands of tiny hairs, which detect vibrations in the air. Sensitive pads on the snapper's feet detect vibrations in the ground. The snapper lacks true ears.
The snapper also lacks toes. Its feet terminate in rough, textured pads for traction, while the front feet sport curved claws for gripping prey and climbing over obstacles. These claws are proportionally much larger in juvenile snappers, which are born in the trees and must climb more often. Though the details of the bones and muscles differ, on the whole the snapper's girdles and limbs are quite similar in structure to earthly vertebrate limbs.
The snapper's life cycle betrays its insect-like ancestry. Snappers mate in autumn, and mating is the only time that adult snappers tolerate each other. The female's reproductive organs are located at the bottom of the abdomen, while the male's are located at the tip of the lower jaw. During mating, the male literally takes the smaller female's body into his jaws, which takes away the female's option of escaping; it is partially for this reason that the snapper's jaws became so large. After fertilization occurs, the female digs a burrow at the base of a large tree, and lays two to three dozen small eggs. After developing through the short, mild Narakan winter, the eggs hatch into tiny larvae. The larvae has undeveloped limbs but well-developed jaws, and use those jaws to bore through the wood of their birth-tree. They seek out other wood-boring organisms to eat, and also readily eat each other. After spending a few months in such a manner, the larval snapper emerges from the tree, climbs high on the outside of the trunk, and secretes a tough cocoon over itself. Roughly three weeks later, a fully-developed, though small, adult snapper chews its way out of its pupa. Using the large claws of its forelegs, it carefully climbs down to the ground, and begins its life as a terrestrial ambush predator. At this stage, weighing only about ten pounds, the snapper is itself highly vulnerable to predation. Few snappers reach adulthood.
Though quite a bit smaller than the average adult human, Narakan snappers should nonetheless be considered extremely dangerous, as their jaws are more than large enough to inflict mortal wounds on humans. Tourists are advised to avoid dense vegetation, where snappers usually lay in wait. Those who do encounter a snapper are advised to run away as quickly as possible, as they will not normally pursue prey more than about ten meters.

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This was a really fun painting to do. I painted most of it in one sitting of about three hours, which is a long time for my impatient self, and it remained interesting throughout. My technique in painting this was influenced by the art of Rich Doble (you'll have to Google him, since I'm too lazy to get a link) by some images of some creature design demonstrations from ConceptArt.org's recent workshop in New Zealand. As for the design, I've had the idea of a creature with huge, jointed jaws for a while, and just decided to draw it.
Now for some words on the concept itself. I was thinking about big bugs recently for whatever reason, and I got to thinking about the limits on the size achievable by arthropods. As I understand it, they are limited by a circulatory system that only works adequately at small sizes, and by the structural limits of an exoskeleton. Also, since vertebrates came on land and dominated all the large land niches, there has been little reason or opportunity for arthropods to grow large. So, I wondered: if vertebrates never came on land, would insects and other arthropods have eventually overcome these limitations and grown huge? I imagine these arthropods slowly developing a more advanced circulatory system, then evolving endoskeletal elements as their weight became too great for their exoskeletons to support alone. Eventually, as they got ever larger, they might do away with the exoskeleton almost altogether; molting and waiting for it to harden would be a nuisance, after all. So, now we have large land animals, with advanced circulatory systems and internal skeletons, often with soft, skin-like outer coverings, and they're descended from insects. Hot damn!
Of course, this creature isn't from Earth, but just replace arthropods with arthropod-like aliens and it's still the same story. Also, I wasn't really thinking about this as I painted this creature. I just saw the opportunity to use my giant insect-descendant idea after the fact. That's how my creature designs usually work: I draw the thing first, then afterwards make up a bunch of reasonably plausible stuff about its evolution and whatnot.
Expect to see more of Arthrognathus in the nearish future. I plan to draw images of its lifecycle, jaw movements, related species, etc.